Jaws James Bond: Richard Kiel's Steel Toothed Villain

Jaws is a huge, steel toothed assassin who hunts Bond in two EON films and is played both times by Richard Kiel. He first appears in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), directed by Lewis Gilbert, where he is billed fourth, behind Roger Moore, Barbara Bach and Curd Jürgens. In that film he is the killer who keeps turning up whenever Bond and the Soviet agent Major Anya Amasova think they have a quiet moment. His employer is the shipping tycoon Karl Stromberg.

He returns in Moonraker (1979), also directed by Lewis Gilbert, and again billed fourth, this time behind Moore, Lois Chiles and Michael Lonsdale. His new employer is the industrialist Hugo Drax, and his first act in that story is to throw Bond out of a plane. The credit never changes: the character is listed only as Jaws, with no other name or alias.

The Spy Who Loved Me has a reported US release of July 13, 1977 and a reported UK premiere of July 20, 1977. Moonraker has a reported US release of June 29, 1979 and a reported UK premiere of June 27, 1979. For the wider rogues gallery, see James Bond villains.

Jaws goes from relentless pursuer of Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) to reluctant ally in Moonraker (1979), after Bond persuades him to turn on Hugo Drax. In the first film he is sent after Bond and Anya Amasova again and again while the two rival agents are forced to cooperate. The trail leads to Karl Stromberg's base in Sardinia and to the supertanker Liparus, which turns out to be a floating dock holding the stolen submarines. Stromberg wants to fire their missiles at Moscow and New York and start a nuclear war.

The finale takes place at Stromberg's underwater base, Atlantis. Bond kills Stromberg and rescues Anya, and Jaws survives a fight with a shark. The base is then destroyed while Bond and Anya flee in an escape pod.

In Moonraker Jaws is working for Hugo Drax and faces Bond again in Rio de Janeiro. Bond follows the trail through Venice and the Amazon and learns that Drax plans to launch fifty gas filled globes to wipe out humanity from a hidden space station. On the station, Bond persuades Jaws to turn against Drax. A laser battle breaks out, Drax is ejected into space, and Bond and Holly Goodhead destroy the globes before they can hit the Earth.

Jaws answers to a villain in each film and fights Bond in both, with one ally of his own in the second. In The Spy Who Loved Me his boss is Karl Stromberg, played by Curd Jürgens, and his targets are Bond and Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach). Roger Moore's Bond is the constant across both stories, and the trio of Bond, Anya and Jaws gives the 1977 film much of its chase energy.

In Moonraker his boss is Hugo Drax, played by Michael Lonsdale, and his targets are Bond and Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles). The film also gives him a companion named Dolly, played by Blanche Ravalec. Dolly is the link to his change of side: Bond persuades Jaws to turn on Drax, and Jaws and Dolly are still together when the story ends.

If you want the hero he keeps colliding with, the profile of James Bond covers the character across the whole series.

No, Jaws does not die on screen in either of his films. At the end of The Spy Who Loved Me he survives his fight with a shark and is left free, which leaves room for a return. In Moonraker, after switching sides, he and Dolly survive and are rescued by US Marines.

Jaws is alive at the end of his last appearance, in Moonraker (1979).

The best Jaws moment is his turn against Hugo Drax on the space station in Moonraker, because the film sets it up in clean steps. Jaws sees Bond, sees the plan to repopulate the Earth with a hand picked group of young people, and realizes that he and Dolly have no place in it. Bond makes the pitch, Jaws changes sides, and the laser battle follows.

Second is the shark fight at Atlantis. A man with steel teeth fighting a shark is the kind of set piece the 1977 film does well, and it also sets up his survival, which is why he can come back.

Third is the opening of Moonraker, where Jaws throws Bond out of a plane. It tells you at once that he is back, and that he is still a problem Bond cannot simply outrun.

A useful comparison is Oddjob from Goldfinger (1964), a silent, deadly servant who is killed in the vault. Jaws is the opposite: he survives, he adapts, and he ends up on Bond's side. For another strong henchman, see Oddjob.